


Say That You'll Stay

by AppleTeeth



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Dub-con (sort of), M/M, Sleepwalking, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleTeeth/pseuds/AppleTeeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newton has an unhealthy habit of sleepwalking, and he keeps on winding up in the lab and snuggling up to Hermann like they're lovers. Hermann grows to love these moments of bliss, even though he doubts they will ever happen when Newt is awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say That You'll Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iraya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iraya/gifts).



> Inspired by iraya's adorable drawing and idea on Tumblr! http://iraya.tumblr.com/post/64487161324 
> 
> "i was thinking of a fic where Newt keeps giving Hermann sleepy snuggles and i love you’s and Hermann just goes with it cause obviously newt is just sleep walking and talking and sometimes he even says i love you back.
> 
> meanwhile Newt doesen’t realize he’s actually doing the stuff he thinks he is dreaming of ahhaha"
> 
> I tried my best! :3

After several weeks of trying to adjust his body clock from one side of the world to the other, Hermann had now made peace with the fact that he had to work earlier in the day than a normal 9-5 shift. His lab-partner (not really a lab-partner when their fields of study were completely different and they loathed each-other) instead liked to come into the lab from midday onwards and leave sometime around midnight. It worked well for them both.

So Hermann was alarmed when he saw Newton enter the lab around four in the morning. He looked ragged and he was wearing only an old t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Even his feet were bare which was concerning as the base was absolutely freezing even on a sunny day.

"Dr Geiszler, what on earth are you doing?"

Newton shuffled over to Hermann, looking completely lost. Hermann watched him curiously as he padded over and then outstretched his arms.

"Um. No," Hermann said, not sure what else to say. This was about as close as Newton had ever willingly been near him ever since they met. If possible they wouldn’t even sit next to each other in meetings.

Newton was getting closer, and, unable to think what to do, Hermann found himself being wrapped up in a tight embrace.

"Hmmmmm," Newt said happily, pressing his face into Hermann’s shoulder.

"Newton, would you please remove yourself?" Hermann asked, his arms rigid at his sides and struggling a little to escape.

"I love you so much," Newton sighed.

He stopped breathing long enough for the next words to be choked out.

"What did you say?"

"I love you… hmmmmm…." and he kissed Hermann fondly on the cheek before cuddling him even tighter.

"That’s… that’s lovely, Newton," he said whilst his brain screamed, _This is a joke, this is a joke, this is only a joke, he’s mocking you, he must know…_

Newton just continued to hug him, cozying up to the other man like he did this every day as a matter of course.

Hermann tried to think what to do, but he couldn’t stop himself and wrapped his arms around Newton’s back like he often thought about but never acted on. Breathing in deeply, he whispered the words back and hoped, beyond anything, that this wasn’t a joke. 

When Newt didn’t start laughing, Hermann pealed his hands away and Newton looked sad for a moment at the loss of contact. Then, he simply turned and walked out of the room just as sleepily as he had entered, leaving Hermann baffled and wondering just what exactly had happened.

———

Six hours later, wearing his shirt and tie and too-tight jeans as always, Newton strolled into the lab with a piece of toast between his teeth and a big cup of coffee in his hands.

"S’up?" he said casually, and headed towards his work station.

Hermann looked over, wondering just what to say to him. The whole experience felt unreal, like maybe Hermann had nodded off and just dreamt of Newton…

"Um, Newton?"

The other man looked up. Hermann didn’t call him anything other than Dr Geiszler in the lab (maybe arsehole once in a while).

"Do you perhaps suffer from sleepwalking?"

"Oh God, did I sleepwalk? Yeah, I do that from time to time. My old roommate used to just direct me back to bed whenever he saw me wandering the hallways. What did I do?"

Hermann contemplated saying, he honestly had his mouth open to tell him, but then he knew what he would lose.

"Nothing. You just walked in here and then walked out again."

"Oh good!" he laughed. "Man, thank God it’s so freezing in this place, right? Or I’d have been walking around here naked."

"Yes," Hermann cleared his throat. "That would have been… terrible."

“Next time just tell me to go back to bed. I usually listen,” and the bastard winked before he went back to setting up his work for the day.

\---

The next time it happened, Hermann didn’t notice Newt had walked into the lab and he yelped at the feeling of arms wrapping around his mid-drift. A happy sigh reached his ears and Hermann sighed back as the other man pulled him in until they were pressed up against one another. 

He put his arms over Newton’s and leaned back slightly, closing his eyes and enjoying the closeness that he felt he had been starved of for years. 

“I love you so much,” Newton murmured.

“I… love you too,” Hermann said nervously. He felt lips peck the back of his neck and he thought he might melt at that second.

 _He doesn’t know he’s doing this_ , the killjoy that lived in Hermann’s mind told him sternly. _You’re taking advantage of someone unable to stop what you do._

“Newton?”

“Hmmm?” he asked, dazed.

“Go back to bed, darling.”

And almost immediately, Newton let go of Hermann and started to walk back the way he came. Hermann watched him leave, looking perfectly ordinary aside from his bedclothes and his glasses missing. He then feared what would happen if anyone would find him wandering, or if he walked into the Shatterdome deployment zone where getting crushed by a Jaeger was a real possibility.

He followed behind Newt all the way to his room, feeling like he was stalking him the way he kept his distance. He just didn’t want him to wake up and see him there, like he was taking advantage of the poor man. 

Newton fumbled with the wheel hatch of his door for a few moments, grunting under his breath like he was wide awake, pulled open the door and Hermann saw him flop back down on his bed before the door closed shut.

\----

It started to happen more often, always very early in the morning and always with Newton making a beeline for his lab partner, reaching for a hug like it was the most normal thing in the world. Hermann would always let him hug him, sometimes hold him back gently for long enough until he told himself off, and then he would guide Newton back to bed. 

One time, Newton tried to kiss him on the lips and Hermann stopped him just in time.

“No, no, Newton. It’s not fair to you. I won’t be that kind of person.”

Newton whined for a moment before snuggling up to Hermann some more, making the taller man sigh in frustration. 

“Why can’t you do this when you’re awake?” he asked angrily. “Just… go back to bed, Newton.”

“Love you…” Newton murmured as he pulled away and padded back towards the door.

“I love you too,” Hermann replied and waited five more seconds before following behind him.

\----

“Hey, have I been sleepwalking any more?” Newton asked casually one day, pulling off his disposable gloves and throwing them in the direction of the hazardous waste disposal. 

“A number of times,” Hermann admitted, trying to sound indignant about the whole matter.

“Shit. Just ignore me, okay? If I’m pissing you off, just,” he whistled and made a circle gesture with his finger, “point me back to my room.”

“That’s what I do, Dr Geiszler, trust me.”

“Oh. Good." His voice had a touch of anger to it. "I’m gonna go get a coffee, you want anything?”

“No, thank you.”

And Newton headed out without even a glance towards Hermann. 

It was awful. He wanted the Newton that only existed when he was asleep, not the real one who was completely indifferent to him and most likely hated him. Not that was entirely his fault. They had been sniping at each other since their first ever meeting, and their forced roommate status only made it worse. Hermann could never pinpoint the moment when that hate had turned into a crush, but he made sure to not so much as show a hint of his true feelings. Not when Newt clearly disliked him. 

\---

Newton was curled up in Hermann’s lap this time. He had found Hermann sitting on the old couch in the corner of the lab, drinking coffee and wondering what to do the next time Newton was sleep-walking. It turned out, the only thing he would do was let Newton hug him, just like every other time. He thoroughly hated himself for letting this continue. 

“Newton?”

“Yes?” Newton asked sweetly, his head rested against Hermann’s chest.

“You should really go.”

“Just a little longer…” he sighed.

Hermann smiled to himself, and put an arm around Newton’s shoulders. “All right, then.”

“KAIJU ALERT. CODENAME HIDOI. CATEGORY THREE. ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO STATIONS AND PREPARE FOR JAEGER DEPLOYMENT. CRIMSON TYPHOON PILOTS REPORT TO BAY 9B. KAIJU ALERT. CODENAME HIDOI. CATEGORY THREE…”

Newton jumped up with a startled cry as the alert system continued to scream instructions to the entire Shatterdome in both Mandarin and English. He looked around frantically, utterly confused as to where he was and how he got there.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, his hands in his hair as he continued to look around. 

“You were sleep-walking,” Hermann said.

Newton turned his body and saw he was sitting far too close to Hermann on their old couch. He pushed away immediately and looked horrified.

“Jesus Christ! Why didn’t you tell me to go away?!”

“Well… well, I tried… I try every bloody time and you just kept on clinging onto me like an idiot child!”

Newton got to his feet, still looking dazed and distraught by the whole situation. He looked at Hermann one last time before he hightailed it back to his room. Hermann wanted to follow him, to apologise for what he had said, but it seemed like anything he said would be misconstrued. Anyway, he had a distraction in the form of being needed on deck. He headed to LOCCENT to assist during the latest kaiju attack, trying to put Newton out of his mind long enough to focus.

\----

When Hermann finally returned back to the lab (Crimson Typhoon’s latest victory would be the talk of Hong Kong for months), Newt had moved his mobile workstation as far away from Hermann’s computer and chalkboards and possible. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even look up, and Hermann wished he knew what to say to improve the situation. Not only could he not be trusted to deal with Newton’s sleep-walking, he had also proven himself to be the sort of scum who liked to take advantage of people when they were unable to stop what happened.

His work was little more than reading through the same paragraph twenty times over, and he finally gave up, figuring nobody would mind he hadn’t finished a full shift after a Jaeger deployment.

“Good night,” he said softly as he left, just to let Newt know he had the lab to himself.

“Don’t worry, I’ll lock my bedroom door tonight,” Newt said loudly, though his head stayed deliberately down as he sliced through what looked like a section of kaiju spleen.

Hermann went to snipe back at him, as was their usual style of communication, but all he wanted to do was apologise. That being impossible for him too, he left.

\----

Newton, now having locked his room so his unconscious self couldn’t unlock it, no longer visited Hermann in the early hours. Hermann thought it would be the end of the situation, and he would go back to pretending he wasn’t completely infatuated by the man like a fourteen year-old with a crush on the most popular kid at school. 

Except Newt was behaving oddly. He looked completely miserable every day he came into the lab, and didn’t so much as say hello any more. Hermann figured this was because of what had happened and how he had taken advantage of him, but given their heated professional relationship, he thought Newt would use this opportunity to rub the whole mess of a situation in his face. He expected snide remarks about how he had acted, not complete silence. In all honestly, he didn’t know how to act when Newt wasn’t throwing shots at him.

“Newton,” Hermann said, walking over slowly to the other side of the room. “I just wanted to say sorry.”

“For what?” Newt asked immediately, looking up from his work.

“For… for what happened. For my behaviour when you were sleep-walking.”

“Oh.”

And that was the end of the conversation. Hermann had practically gift-wrapped a chance for Newt to throw barbs at him, and he hadn’t taken the bait.

“Are you okay, Newton?”

“Sure. Sure, I’m fine. But listen, you don’t have to worry about me any more.”

Hermann leaned against Newton’s desk, seeing as the other man was refusing to make eye contact.

“But I am worried. Why aren’t you shouting at me for what happened? Not that I welcome our altercations, but this is usually the point where you call me a stuffy grandpa and that the 19th century called and they want their uptight arsehole back.”

Newton just nodded as if to say, sure, he should be saying that.

“Newton, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to take advantage of you, or cross a boundary of some kind--”

“Wait. _You_ crossed a boundary?” Newton asked suddenly, looking at Hermann in shock.

“Yes, by not sending you back to your room the moment I saw you were asleep. It’s absolutely reprehensible behaviour…”

“So, you’re not mad at me for wanting to be with you?”

And that threw the entire conversation off-tilter. Hermann had to grip his cane just a little bit tighter to steady himself.

“Newton, you… want to be with me?”

Newt looked around the room nervously, like he was planning his escape route. 

“Uh, well… I mean… I mean, c’mon dude!” he threw his hands up. “It’s not like it’s subtle! I’m fucking trying to kiss you in my sleep!”

“I thought… I thought it was just…” he shrugged helplessly. “You thinking I was someone else?”

“Who else would I think you were?!”

“I don’t know!” Hermann shouted back. “I just didn’t think there was any chance you could possibly want to be with me, even in your dreams!”

“So you think I make a beeline for you when I’m sleep-walking because I’m in love with some other stuffy, boney, pale-as-shit physicist with terrible taste in clothes?”

“I… yes? I don’t know… But you couldn’t possibly…”

At that point, they both started laughing.

\----

Hermann was brewing a pot of coffee at four-thirty am, glancing expectantly over at the door even though the rest of the base was pretty much asleep aside from the skeleton crew. He yawned and took a long sip and trying to force his eyes open. His body clock had long since got used to the new time-zone - it was now him forcing himself awake at this hour. 

He sat down on the old couch, having slid an upside-down crate towards it to act as a coffee-table and picked up a book. Work could wait. The window in which visits happened were only around an hour long, so it didn’t really matter if he started a little later than usual.

Twenty minutes later, he heard the familiar padding of bare feet heading in his direction. He shuffled up a little more to the armrest and welcomed the body that lay down next to him. The sleeping man pressed his arms around him, resting his head on his shoulder and Hermann threaded his fingers through Newton’s hair.

“This is nice,” Newt declared.

“Yes it is,” Hermann agreed. He then shook Newt’s shoulders roughly. At first he was against being so rough with someone sleepwalking, but it turned out it was the only way to wake him properly.

Newt was dazed for a while, blinking his eyes and looking alarmed before he realised where he was and grinned.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” Hermann pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Do you need to sleep some more?”

“Yes please,” he said, cuddling up a little closer. 

“Honestly, it’s like dating a sloth,” Hermann tutted, though he hugged him back too, feeling his own resistance to staying awake waning rapidly. He threw the book towards the coffee table and closed his eyes.

“Hell yeah,” Newton murmured. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”


End file.
